Dawson's Creek writer Heidi Ferrer committed suicide last month after contracting Covid-19 and a year-long battle following the disease. She was 50. Ferrer took her own life on May 26 at her home in Los Angeles, California following a lengthy battle that left her bed-ridden and continuously riddled with pain.
The mother-of-one contracted the virus in April 2020 after experiencing body aches, including severe pains in her feet and ankles, fatigue and flu-like symptoms. Her spouse, screenwriter, director and producer Nick Guthe, confirmed the news of her death saying that she became almost crippled in the last few months before taking her own life.
Gone Too Soon
Guthe said that after contracting Covid-19 in April, Ferrer's symptoms escalated and by June she was bedridden. Over the following months, Ferrer's fatigue and foot pain remained but she also became crippled with neurological tremors.
"My beautiful angel, Heidi, passed over tonight after a 13 month battle with Long Haul Covid," Guthe wrote on Twitter. "She was an amazing mother. She fought this insidious disease with the same ferocity she lived with. I love you forever and I'll see you down the road."
Ferrer too had elaborated about her battle with the coronavirus in a September post that was reported in TMZ. "The monster is real and it came for me. Recovering from COVID-19 has been one of the hardest things I've ever gone through and I've been through a lot," she had written.
"In my darkest moments, I told my husband that if I didn't get better, I did not want to live like this. I wasn't suicidal, I just couldn't see any quality of life long term and there was no end in sight," she had written.
Pain and Depression
Understandably, Ferrer had suicidal thoughts for some time and the reason was the unbearable pain the resultant depression she got into. "One of the cruelest things COVID did to me was to take away my ability to have dreams. I don't mean dreams in my sleep, I mean I completely stopped dreaming about my future because I couldn't picture it. It was a wall," Ferrer had written in the post detailing about her mental state.
However, she encouraged and motivated others who had already contracted the disease. She told those going through similar long-haul struggles with Covid that they could all pull through together and urged them never to give up. "I believe this in my bones: If you are suffering from this monster, you will eventually make it out, we will heal," she wrote.
Ferrer's condition had also somewhat improved in August but again deteriorated. "I now believe that I will still have more 'waves' of symptoms and bad days, but it feels like it's happening every month now instead of every 1-2 weeks," she said.
Born in Kansas, Ferrer moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s to pursue acting and completed her degree from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Eventually, she moved onto screenwriting after selling her first spec, "The C Word," to Academy Award-winning producer Arnold Kopelson, Deadline reported.
She also penned several episodes of the hit 1990s shows Dawson's Creek and Wasteland, as well as several films. In recent years, she became an avid and well-known blogger. She is survived by her husband Nick and their 13-year-old son Bexon.
